Intro to Matthew 22:1-14

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/24/2023 1:37 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                        Focus:  Intro to Matthew 22:1-14

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Matt. 22:1-14

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2  "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 “And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. 4 “Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."’ 5 “But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, 6  and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. 7 “But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. 8 "Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 ‘Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ 10 "Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. 11 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, 12  and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. 13 “Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.’”

 

            We begin today to look at the third parable that Jesus uses in order to confront the Jewish leaders that came up to Him the next day after cleansing the Temple.  I don’t always understand chapter breaks in the Bible.  I do know that they were not there when the Bible was first written, and they are put into the Bible to make it more understandable.  I think that you can understand what the problem is here as Jesus speaks three parables in a row, and two of them are in chapter 21, and then chapter 22 begins with this third parable.

 

            These three parables can be called “Jesus’ trilogy of judgment parables.”  MacArthur adds “It is among the most dramatic and powerful of all His parables, which, through directed specifically at those leaders and all unbelieving Israel whom they represent, also has far-reaching significance and application for subsequent times, certainly including our own.”

 

            There are some other things that I really don’t understand in my studies of the Bible, especially the New Testament, and especially the four gospels.  I have mentioned many times that in order to help a believer to understand the Bible they must better understand the attributes of God.  The attributes of God are like looking at an orange or a grapefruit.  An orange or a grapefruit is one fruit with different divisions in it, but they all are a part of the orange or grapefruit.  When you look at the attributes of God they are all a part of who God is but they have divisions in them which to me are difficult to understand.  God is love, and God is just, and from a human understanding of this they can seem to be opposite. With God they are not. 

 

            Think about this with what I am about to write.  Jesus had been preaching the kingdom of God for about three years, and for the most part had been preaching it to Israel, proclaiming that He was their Messiah, sent from God to them just as God had promised that He would do.  However at the end of those three years, all but a handful of Jews had rejected Him.  Although Jesus had always been popular with the masses wherever He ministered, their acceptance of Him was for the most part superficial and selfish.  Now we know that one of God’s attributes is that He is all-knowing, and so the only way that this can make sense to me is that when Jesus became man, yet still God, He would have had to know this, for after all it was prophesized that this would happen.  I guess that one thing is sure and that is when I get to heaven I will understand some of these mysteries that I don’t understand at this time.  However I will keep on studying the Word each day, and perhaps some of these mysteries that I don’t understand will be made clearer to me.

 

            Jesus had a great following but many of them were looking at Him to be the type of Messiah that is also spoken of Him in the Old Testament prophets.  Once they found out that this was not why He came, as He came in order to die for their sins, many of them would have no part of what He was teaching.  I have mentioned this when I was going over the text about what is called Psalm Sunday and all of those who were their when Jesus came in to offer Himself as their Messiah, will soon cry out for Him to be crucified because their hopes of having a Messiah in order to get out from the Roman Empire were dashed. 

 

            John MacArthur writes the following at the end of his introduction:  “But when the people finally realized the kind of Messiah Jesus was, and especially that He had no plans to deliver them from the Roman oppressors, their acclamation quickly turned to rejection—as is evident in their change of mood from Sunday to Thursday of this last Passover week of Jesus’ ministry.  Therefore, as He continued to respond to the Jewish leaders in the Temple, where He was teaching on Wednesday morning (21:23), it was also to the multitudes that the third judgment parable was directed.”  I am happy that some of the things that I have written go along with what MacArthur writes.

 

7/24/2023 2:12 PM